


in cups of coffee

by Oparu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 06:09:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15880122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: Alice, Robin and Maleficent have an unexpected conversation at one of the state dinners of the newly united realm. (from the prompt - 'one night stand and falling pregnant au'





	in cups of coffee

**Author's Note:**

> absolute fluff where Mal and Regina had a one night stand after Regina's coronation and Mal got pregnant. kind of the fluffy sort of thing I can't resist. 
> 
> Alice and Robin are precious and I love them.

“One of the best things about parties here is buffet gets all mixed up. This bit, with the fish, that’s from Arendelle, and these funny cakes? they’re straight out of Wonderland, minus the magic powers, I think. I hope.” Alice balanced another cake on top of the first and smirked. "Guess we'll find out." 

“If I end up miniature, put me somewhere outside before the magic wears off, I tend to return to form all wings and scales.”

“Well that’s an idea, a wee little dragon.” Alice chuckled, imagining a palm sized little creature breathing fire. “Cakes unfortunately make you bigger, so we’d have to hope you were in a good mood before the castle got squashed.”

Maleficent raised an eyebrow. “Can’t say I’ve ever been accused of stepping on a castle, burning one, razing...” She raised her hand in a submissive gesture. 

Did she have pointed teeth?  She couldn’t really have pointed teeth. Maleficent had totally normal teeth. She was human. Human-ish, human right now. 

"These cakes aren't magic, I promise."

"Then the castle should remain intact." Maleficent handed Alice a napkin. Such a mom thing, of course, she was a mom, some kind of dragon mom and she did hang out with Regina a lot, which made sense because Regina was totally a mom. 

"Champagne?" Alice offered, holding out the flute. "I hear it's the good stuff."

Maleficent took the drink and gestured towards the tables. Somehow they'd ended up together: Papa, her Nobin, the dragons, and some lovely dignitaries from the Realm of Untold stories. They seemed to have stepped out of some sort of Eastern European fairy tale and they only talked in Elvish. Robin thought it was maybe Lithuanian, because she'd been through there when she was cursed and backpacking.

As they sat down, Lily looked at her mom, eyes wide. "Mom!" she hissed.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing at all. Thanks for grabbing me some more champagne." Lily's glass was full, but she downed it, guilping it all like cold tea. 

Robin's eyes got big and Papa looked from Maleficent to Lily as if he knew something. Papa was really good at figuring things out. When there were things to figure out, which it seemed like there was. Interesting. 

Was this a thing? It was just a diplomatic dinner, something where Regina would give a nice speech and there would be food. Why wasn't Lily letting her mom drink her champagne?

"Is this sushi?"

"I don't know what sushi is, dear. It's a salmon dish from Arendelle, one of my favorites." 

"Which you--" Lily stopped again, learning in. "Really shouldn't be eating because it's raw, you know that?"

"I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about." 

"I put the app on your phone, I told you how to use it. Smoked fish isn't cooked and you really shouldn't--" 

"My phone's somewhere safe."

Alice leaned in close to Robin, her lips brushing her cheek. "I bet she's got it in a cave or something."

"She doesn't have a cave."

"She does, it's underneath the library, Auntie Regina trapped her there for decades."

"Well that's romantic."

"They're so not romantic."

"Uh-huh," Robin rolled her eyes over her champagne. "Tell her what romantic might look like, Detective."

"Oh no, I prefer to be left out of this," Papa said, shaking his head. "Whatever has occured between the Good Queen and the dragon is between them and none of our business."

Alice raised both her eyebrows. "So something did happen? They got all flirty with fireballs and stuff?"

"We don't pry into the private affairs of others, Starfish."

Alice shot a look at Lily and Maleficent, who were still arguing and paying know attention to anyone else. "It's not exactly private if they're discussing it in front of us."

Robin stole a cake from Alice's plate and shrugged. "Mostly they're arguing about where Maleficent should keep her phone." 

"You said it was precious," Maleficent insisted, eating the salmon she wasn't supposed to eat. 

"Phones are expensive," Lily started, waving down the waiter for more champagne, because she seemed to need it. "But it's really of no use to you if it's in your horde somewhere."

Robin nudged her, whispering, "Told you she was hiding it."

"Well, they are a little jewel-like, I suppose."

Maleficent rolled her eyes. "If someone needed me, I'm easily summoned. Any idiot with half a brain and a--"

"Mom, don't announce how you're summoned."

Now that was interesting. You could summon a dragon? "Sorry, pardon me for butting in, you can really be, like, summoned? What's that like?"

Maleficent stopped arguing with Lily and turned her head, looking right at her all predatory. "It tingles a little." 

"Do you know who summoned you? Is there like, a message?"

"I don't think it's like texting," Robin said, because she knew more about magic.

"It's not that specific, most of the time."

"So having a phone would be more useful," Alice offered, taking out her own and holding it up. "See, here's Robin telling me to get marmalade at the store yesterday. If she just summoned me, I wouldn't know I needed to go to the store, just that she wanted me to come home."

The dragon lady took her phone for a moment, and her smile grew. She twisted her fingers and a fresh jar of marmalade appeared in front of Alice's plate. "I concede that your messages might be useful, but, so is magic."

Grabbing the jar, Alice opened it with a grin. Marmalade would go brilliantly on her cake. "All right, you can have a point for that."

Robin tried to help. "What would you do if you needed someone to know something specific, like...you wanted to tell Lily something. Can you summon her?"

"Nah, she's not a mythical figure from fairy tales, I don't think she gets her own summoning spell," Alice piped up, spreading marmalade on her cake, because why not? It was going to be better with marmalade. 

"So what would you do?"

Maleficent set down her fork and dabbed her mouth with her napkin. "Inhabit a reflective substance near her and tell her what I needed to." 

"You could just call me."

"It's not my way."

Lily looked up at the ceiling, as if somehow the great wooden beams could help her. "You lived without magic, you've used tools. Phones are a tool. Part of this world, and they're really helpful. You can learn a lot from having a tiny computer in your pocket."

Staring at her daughter, Maleficent's eyes grew soft, almost liquid blue. "Living without magic was a cold, lonely hell."

"This isn't without, it's in addition." Lily reached for her mother's hand, wrapping their fingers together. 

Alice's eyes stung a little. Parents and their children got to her way too fast, especially when they were good to each other. She could just hear Nobin teasing her for being soft. 

"You get to keep your magic," Lily continued, "But you get the bonuses of the modern world too. Indoor plumbing, Netflix. Apps that answer all the questions you might have about the weird shit that's going to happen." 

Robin mouthed "weird shit"? And Alice shrugged, they shouldn't be listening, but it was really hardly a private conversation, and she was curious, dreadfully so. 

"I'm getting more food, just think about it, okay?" Lily stood, touching her mother's shoulder. "I'm sure you can use magic to make the damn phone fireproof so you don't have to worry about melting it." 

Standing up a moment after Lily, Papa leaned down and kissed Alice's forehead. _ "I'll talk to her."  _ That promised, without a word. 

That left the three of them and the Elvish half of the table. Alice wasn't supposed to ask, Robin was going to make that face as soon as she did, but she couldn't help herself. Not that Maleficent seemed to care about privacy. Maybe she needed a chance to talk about it as much as Lily did. 

"So, why can't you eat raw fish? Is that a dragon thing?"

The sharp pain was Robin kicking her ankle under the table but Alice smiled and ignored it. Robin was too tentative and never found things out. 

"In dragon form I ate nearly everything raw, perhaps scorched on the outside. This body is more picky, but no, the restrictions are rules from this world. No drinking, no raw fish, no coffee."

"Do you like coffee?"

Maleficent tilted her head, like the iguanas did at the zoo when they were about to be fed. "I do, it hadn't reached the Enchanted Forest yet, though I'd had it in the far south. Here, everything's so easy."

"Couldn't you just magic it up if you wanted to?" 

"Never turned out right. Rather like wine. Some things are better if you let them grow and age instead of pulling them from the air." 

"So you must miss it?" Alice started to ask why she couldn't have it but Robin squeezed her hand, stopping her. 

"You can have one cup a day, usually. I mean, you'll want to talk to someone."

What did Robin know? How did she have this figured out? What did she know about coffee and dragons and stuff? 

"Who would she talk to?" she demanded, looking from her to Maleficent. Both of them ignored her, having some kind of conversation beneath their words. 

"That obvious?"

"My mom was a fake midwife, before she became a real one. Kinda heard a lot about everything." Robin grabbed the coffee pot from the middle of the table and filled the mug in front of Maleficent. "Lily's not exactly subtle."

Midwife. Pieces clicked together like she'd finally seen why the chess pieces were where they were. Dragons got pregnant, apparently, and Lily worried about it. 

"She's concerned."

"She loves you."

Maleficent took a breath and smiled, really smiled, all bright and happy. "I'm not accustomed to anyone trying to protect me."

"It's a little freaky. You'll have to give her some time to get used to it." 

Yeah, it bloody well would be freaky if your mom got pregnant when you were Lily's age. Not really unheard of, everyone's age was all messed up. Papa was young, Queen Regina was apparently at least fifty years older than she looked, so was Zelena, and the Charmings. 

"Who's the father?" Alice asked over her champagne. "Are you excited?" 

Robin's elbow slammed into her ribs.

"Ouch."

"You can't just ask that."

Alice began to protest, but Maleficent's warm hand settled over hers. "It's all right. I don't mind. I haven't told the father yet. She's been very busy." 

"She?" That was far from the weirdest part of this conversation, but it was kind of cool if some kind of magic existed where two women could make a baby. Did one of them have to be a dragon? Did that mean she could have a little baby who would look like Robin some day?

"Zorro."

"Zorro? Zorro's a girl? That's brilliant." 

Robin chuckled. "All the fairytales have to have a twist."

"Anyway, congratulations, before I forget."

"Thank you." Maleficent squeezed her fingers before wrapping both of her hands around her coffee. "Lily's right about the app thing, whatever that is, isn't she?"

"They're useful, if you have questions, or if you like tracking things. There are even cute things where it compares the size of your baby with a fruit or a cookie or something." 

"Why would you want to compare a baby to something edible?"

"Makes it less scary." Alice offered. "Compare it to a marmalade sandwich and suddenly it seems like you can handle it."

"I think that's the idea," Robin agreed. 

"So, what's Zorro like? All swashbuckling and mysterious?"

"She can be." Maleficent stared upwards, towards the head table and Regina, Snow, David, Emma, the other version of Papa, and Henry. "Kind of brash, really, the first time we met, she wandered into my castle, brave enough to face the dragon." 

"No wonder you liked her. It really means something when someone isn't afraid of you."

Robin nuzzled her cheek and whispered. "I'll never be afraid of you, Tower Girl." 

Blushing a little, Alice took Robin's hand. "So you haven't told Zorro?"

"We haven't had the right moment."

"Is there a right moment?" 

"It'll never be perfect," Robin said. "You just have to be brave."

"Is that what you did, dear?" Maleficent's smile went soft and indulgent. 

"We both had to be brave enough to work it out, luckily for us, it was all true love and rainbows," Alice teased, and Robin rolled her eyes. 

"There were rainbows, but it definitely wasn't easy."

"It never is. All kinds of love and complicated. Even when it's true, or as simple as the love of a mother for her child. Lily grew up far away from me, and since I found out about this little one, I can't help worrying that somehow I'll lose this one too."

"No, no, don't think that. We're at the end of the book now, everyone gets a happy ending. Look at Regina, she was evil, now she's good, and we all love her. She won't let anyone take your little dragonling."

"Auntie Regina's pretty trustworthy that way, I promise, if you tell her, she can help," Robin added. 

Something shifted behind Maleficent's eyes and she blinked twice, but that didn't stop a single tear, running down from her left eye. "She's found her place now, hasn't she?" 

"She's happy." 

Alice grabbed her napkin and passed it to Maleficent. "It's okay." 

"Thank you." 

"It's really going to be okay," Alice insisted, starting to ramble about how much they'd all overcome to get here, this crazy mashed together realm, but Maleficent knew that. She knew things were different now. Everyone, even formerly villainous dragons had a chance at their happy ending. "We all work together on things here, so, if you need a village to help protect a little wee dragon, then consider yourself family." 

Arms went around her quickly, strong, warm arms that smelled like a campfire on a cozy evening. 

Hugs were apparently a thing that they did, and as far as hugs went, it was a strong one, tight and heartfelt. 

"Everything all right?" Papa asked as Maleficent eventually let her go. 

"Just getting to know each other," Alice said, smiling at him. 

"Turns out these two have a lot in common," Robin said gently. 

Lily's concerned took a little longer to settle, but she sat, slowly losing the tension in her posture. "Making friends?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, I guess we did." 

"Okay."

Maleficent touched Lily's cheek. "It is, dear."

Robin leaned in close enough that only Alice could hear. "Did you just volunteer us to babysit a little dragon?"

Giggling, Alice shrugged. "I might've." 

"Just checking." 

  
  
  



End file.
